Missouri boys reform school students say they reported abuse — but no one listened

BY JUDY L. THOMAS AND LAURA BAUER

Darrin Frazier now sees the images clearly in his mind.

He was a teenager when a leader at his Christian boarding school decided he’d been in the bathroom too long. After Frazier left the stall, he said, the leader grabbed him, lifted him off the floor and slammed his body into another door.

He remembers the times he was hauled off to the “padded room” where, out of sight, staff punched and kicked students for perceived transgressions. And the stifling summer days when boys were ordered to tote five-gallon buckets of irrigation sand in each hand, the weight and repetition so intense that Frazier’s “knuckles busted open,” coating his hands in blood.

For half his life, Frazier pushed deep the haunting memories from the 15 months and three days he was a student at the Agape Boarding School in southwest Missouri.

“I just moved on with my life,” said Frazier, now 30 and living in southern California. “I never shared horrors of what happened there. And as fast as I could, I forgot all about that place.”

Until he read about Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch, a boarding school just 25 miles from Agape. The girls facility, whose owner worked at Agape when Frazier was there, is now closed as an investigation into allegations of abuse and neglect continues.

Women who once lived there are speaking out — in a September article in The Star and on social media — and their stories are all too familiar to Frazier, who attended the neighboring boys school in 2004 and 2005.

He knew it was time. And he wasn’t alone.

The Star, in an ongoing investigation into Missouri Christian reform schools, interviewed 16 former Agape students — their time at the school spanning nearly 20 years. The men shared emotional descriptions of beatings, long days of manual labor, and food and water withheld as punishment. The constant berating and mind games. Like Frazier, some were telling their stories for the first time.

Dozens more are beginning to reveal their experiences, some anonymously, on podcasts, Facebook and other onine sites. And more than 1,200 people, many of them former students, have signed a change.org petition to close Agape.

Collectively, they paint a picture of a faith-based reform school that — like others across Missouri — employs disciplinary methods that former students say are tantamount to physical and mental abuse. But even when allegations are substantiated by the state, facilities stay open and more come to Missouri to take advantage of the state’s lax regulations.

Four boarding schools, including Circle of Hope and Agape, are within miles of each other in Cedar County. The Star found that the Missouri Department of Social Services has substantiated allegations of abuse and neglect against three of them. All have ties to independent fundamental Baptist churches and claim a religious exemption under a decades-old statute, which means they are not required to be licensed and the state has no authority over their operations.

At Agape, “they’re just doing whatever they want and hiding under faith and the name of God,” said David Patterson, a student in 2002-2003 who stayed at the school for 371 days.

To parents and others on the outside, the schools are teaching out-of-control teens honor and respect, how to live a faithful life according to a literal interpretation of the Bible, all while serving the community.

Yet, to students and others, the school has created a toxic culture that pits troubled boys against each other and instills a lasting fear of sinning and going to Hell.

James Clidence, who was on staff as a teacher from May 2012 to March 2015, said leaders would explain away their methods of discipline and punishment.

“‘We’re trying to help you get your life on track for Jesus,’ is what they would say,” Clidence told The Star.

He was fired in 2015, he said, after refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He now speaks out on social media and has written a review on Yelp telling parents to reach out to him if they’re thinking of sending their sons to Agape.

“It’s all religious abuse,” Clidence said. “As a pastor, I’m offended that they would use Christianity for their own financial gain. It was abusing the church, abusing Christ. It still is.”

The Star reached out to Bryan Clemensen, son of the Agape founder, who reportedly is running the school. His father James Clemensen is dealing with a serious illness, according to a newsletter on the school’s website.

Reporters emailed Bryan Clemensen an extensive list of questions, and a staff member who answered the phone said he had received it. A message also was left on his personal voicemail. There was no response to the email or call.

The Star’s investigation found that former Agape students, others close to the school and at least one mental health professional have reported concerns to law enforcement and the state about possible abuse. It is unclear, however, what was done after any of those complaints were lodged.

One former student told an Arizona therapist in 2014 that some staff “would punch and kick him, he would have bruises all over,” and that all the staff at the school knew.

Cedar County Sheriff James “Jimbob” McCrary wasn’t sheriff at that time, but told The Star that records show an investigator contacted the therapist. It appeared, however, that the therapist didn’t follow through when asked for additional information, McCrary said.

In response to a request from The Star, the sheriff’s office provided documents for 10 calls for service and one incident report regarding Agape since 2010.

Those documents showed one report of alleged abuse and an investigation by the state Department of Social Services, both in 2016. When a deputy responded to Agape on the alleged abuse, the student who contacted the sheriff’s office said the allegations were bogus, according to the sheriff’s department report, and that he was “designated as the spokesperson for a group of kids trying to get the school in trouble.”

The call for service regarding the Arizona therapist was not included in the documents the sheriff’s department provided, and The Star doesn’t know how many other reports were omitted from its request.

“Investigative reports that involve juveniles or that are open and/or ongoing are not open records and can not be released,” McCrary said in an email.

LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TIES TO AGAPE

Several former students told The Star that they long suspected a close relationship between law enforcement in the county and staff leaders at Agape that kept them from thoroughly investigating allegations.

The Star did find that the Cedar County sheriff’s department has ties to Agape, employing in some capacity at least three people who have worked at the school — or still do. That includes two full-time deputies.

One, Robert Graves, is a former Agape student and is married to a daughter of James Clemensen, The Star found. Graves and Samantha Clemensen were married at Agape Baptist Church in 1996, court records show.

Graves’ name is listed in Cedar County sheriff’s call for service reports as the person from Agape who contacted the sheriff’s office several times in 2017 and 2018 regarding runaways and a threat left on the phone.

And according to county financial records, Graves’ daughter — James Clemensen’s granddaughter — was a sheriff’s dispatcher in 2018 and 2019. She is married to the son of the doctor who provides medical care for Agape students.

Graves and another deputy, McCrary said, work off-duty for a company that parents from around the country hire to transport their troubled teens to the school. That company — Safe, Sound Secure Youth Ministries — is owned by Julio Sandoval, dean of students at Agape, who occasionally has worked shifts at the county jail, according to the sheriff. Sandoval’s son is a full-time corrections officer.

“It’s scary,” said Patterson, the former student. “That’s just Agape bumping elbows with the local authorities so they can do whatever they want to do and get away with it.”

Neither Graves nor Sandoval responded to requests for comment.

Still another deputy worked off-duty security for Agape just months before he began investigating abuse allegations at Circle of Hope boarding school, where former students said owners Boyd and Stephanie Householder routinely restrained them and used other extreme discipline and punishment, including restricting food and water.

The Householders spoke to The Star in September and adamantly denied ever abusing or neglecting any of their students over the years.

Former students of Agape said they tried to get local authorities’ attention over the years. Several times, they said, boys ran away to get help from the Cedar County sheriff’s department only to be driven right back to the school.

‘IT FELL ON DEAF EARS’

Colton Schrag was one of those boys more than a decade ago. At 15, he jumped out of a window and ran, hoping authorities would pick him up, which they did. He said he told them about the abuse inside Agape.

“It fell on deaf ears,” Schrag said. “No report was filed, nothing was done. I was handcuffed, stuck in the back of the squad car and brought right back to Agape. Never saw the police station, nothing.”

McCrary told The Star that many of the reports about Agape over the years involved runaway teens and assaults between students. In the past four years, since he’s been sheriff, he said there have been three allegations of abuse and neglect involving the school. Two were unsubstantiated and the third is pending. He did not elaborate.

“It should be noted that other agencies assisted in these investigations, including DSS, the juvenile office and CAC (Child Advocacy Center),” he said.

McCrary also told The Star he’s aware of the connections his employees have to Agape but said they haven’t influenced the department’s investigations.

“The Sheriff’s Office is an equal opportunity employer,” he said in an email to The Star. “We can not and do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, other employment etc.”

He added: “When an alleged crime is reported that requires an investigation anywhere in the county where a possible conflict is involved, the case will be passed to another agency or investigator for follow up. For example if a Cedar County Deputy or staff member is connected to the case somehow. Or if a relative or close friend is somehow involved or connected to the case.”

In the past two years, Brett Harper — a former Agape student — said he’s contacted the county prosecutor, the governor’s office and the Cedar County sheriff’s department several times. He also sent a link to dozens of testimonials from former students to the sheriff’s office and said he spoke to a deputy one year ago.

“I gave them the opportunity to talk with kids who say they were abused,” said Harper, who spent four years at Agape from 1999 to 2003. “They don’t want to follow up. They told me they’ve already investigated them.”

When it comes to Agape, Harper said, “everyone gives me the same line.”

“‘It’s not my responsibility.’”

LAWMAKERS GET INVOLVED

Many former Agape students have written testimonials that will be shared with lawmakers at a hearing Monday before the Children and Families Committee in the Missouri House of Representatives. Rep. Keri Ingle, a Lee’s Summit Democrat, called for that hearing after reading The Star’s coverage of the Circle of Hope allegations in September.

The committee will examine the state law that allows boarding schools like Agape to remain unchecked.

Ingle has spoken to several men who spent months to years at Agape during their youth. She has more testimonials from former Agape students describing physical and emotional abuse than she does from Circle of Hope or other schools.

“Several of these guys are also veterans,” said Ingle, a former social worker for the Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division. “These are people who have gone through boot camp, saw combat, war, served their country honorably and say the trauma they endured at Agape eclipses everything they experienced in serving their country.

“I thought that was illuminating. That is something I heard consistently.”

Over and over, former students have told The Star that they were forced to stand with their faces against a wall for hours on end, holding a Bible in one hand while reading scripture. Multiple former students said teens could be “walled” for eight hours at a time, sometimes for consecutive days, even weeks.

Talking with their peers was strictly prohibited.

“You couldn’t have conversations with other students,” said Allen Knoll, who attended Agape from 1999 to 2001. “No outside access to the world, which is so abusive.”

If students were caught talking, former students said, the staff assumed it could only be about three things: Running away, talking dirty about staff members’ daughters or wives or beating staff up. So they’d be in severe trouble.

Other forms of punishment, they said, included restraining, a move where staff would slam boys to the ground then forcefully hold them down while applying pressure to various parts of their bodies, like their necks, arms and legs. Some said Bryan Clemensen became known for his “Jurassic elbow,” a tactic he would use to deliver a powerful blow to the back of the head or between the shoulders — places that don’t bruise easily.

And when teens spent long days in the blistering sun doing manual labor, they said they were only allowed three gulps of water during rare breaks. They said they would often go hours without a drink.

Ingle said she wants lawmakers to have a full understanding of these unregulated youth facilities.

“It doesn’t appear it’s just isolated to Circle of Hope,” she said. “This could very well be systemic. … It shows this is a broader problem than we were initially looking at.”

The Star asked DSS whether it had substantiated reports of abuse or neglect at any of the four Cedar County faith-based boarding schools — including Circle of Hope, which is now closed. Last month, the state confirmed that Agape has had one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse since 2010 and none before. An agency spokeswoman would not say when that report occurred or elaborate on the incident.

The state also said that it had substantiated one allegation of neglect at Legacy Ranch and Legacy Boys Academy, another boarding school in Cedar County. That facility is run by Brent Jackson, a former long-time staff member at Agape. A DSS spokeswoman would provide no further information about the allegations.

Jackson did not respond to an email or phone call from The Star asking for comment.

And DSS substantiated four reports of abuse and neglect at Circle of Hope in recent years, all of which the Householders dispute. They are fighting some of them in court. There were no substantiated reports at the county’s fourth boarding school, Wings of Faith Academy for girls.

The Star found a record of an incident that the state did not include. An 18-year-old Agape student who was also a junior staff member was charged in 2004 and convicted in 2005 of three counts of first-degree statutory sodomy involving a student. Jacob Joseph Mayer was sentenced to five years’ probation, but ended up doing prison time after violating the probation. He currently is listed on the Missouri sex offender registry as being “noncompliant.”

Mayer’s victim filed a personal injury civil suit against Agape Boarding School, Agape Baptist Church and James Clemensen in 2015. The case was settled out of court.

DSS did not say why that 2004 criminal case — which resulted in charges and a conviction the following year — wasn’t on its list of substantiated allegations. Nor did the agency say whether the case was investigated by social workers.

Representatives of the Children’s Division and child advocates are among those expected to speak at Monday’s hearing in Jefferson City. Former students are hopeful they’ll see change soon.

“I remember being at the school and feeling so disconnected and helpless, there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say, no one I can talk to, no one can come and save me,” said James Griffey, who was a student from 1998 until he graduated in 2001 and then stayed on a year as staff. “And no one even knows what’s going on here.

“My goal with this is to hopefully fix the future, but also for the people out there suffering, let them know they’re not alone.”

AGAPE’S PATH FROM CALIFORNIA TO MISSOURI

Agape Boarding School was founded in Stockton, California, in 1990 by James Clemensen — a retired California Highway Patrol officer — and his wife, Kathy, who the students were told to only address as “Ma’am.”

The school was designed “to teach young boys the character and discipline needed to become a successful young man. … We strive to change a rebellious and out-of-control boy into a God-honoring and parent-honoring young man.”

In 1992, the Clemensens acquired a former Air Force radar station outside Othello, Washington, and relocated there. The school grew to 150 students, but the campus was shut down in 1995 after being cited for permitting and code violations.

Clemensen was later charged in federal court with removing asbestos-containing material from insulation on steam pipes between 1993 and 1994 and burying it on school property. One former student told The Star in a recent interview that the students were the ones forced to strip the asbestos off the piping and then put it in the ground.

Prosecutors said Clemensen eventually hired a contractor to dig it up and properly dispose of it.

The family landed about three miles outside Stockton, Missouri, and opened Agape Boarding School there in the summer of 1996.

“It was literally like a creepy abandoned summer camp,” said Greg Brown, of southern California, who was among the first students to enroll at the new location. “They had these dorms, and all the kids were piled in there. I’m in construction now, and looking back, I don’t think those things would have passed fire code at all. They had all the windows bolted shut. If there was a fire in one of those buildings, everyone would have burned up.”

Over the years, the Clemensens continued to make improvements to the facility, much of the labor done by the students. Today, Agape Boarding School is widely known as a powerhouse throughout the so-called troubled teen industry.

Like many other Christian boarding schools across the country, Agape has been inspired by Lester Roloff, the late independent fundamental Baptist pastor seen by many as a pioneer in the effort to deliver wayward teens to Jesus. Roloff’s reform schools have been the subjects of serious abuse allegations over the years that include whippings and extended periods of isolation, and some that have been shut down have packed up and reopened in other states.

The dorms at Agape are named after Roloff and other independent fundamental Baptist preachers, and former students say pictures of IFB leaders hung on the walls.

IFB churches teach followers to separate themselves from worldly influence. Agape’s parent handbook reflects that philosophy: “Worldly clothing is not allowed to be worn by our students,” it says. “We require our students to be dressed in Agape uniform...Students may not have personal clothing unless approved by Agape.”

Parents pay big bucks to send their sons to Agape. Current tuition is $3,250 per month, for a total of $39,000 for a year, according to the parent handbook. On the day the student arrives, parents are required to pay the first month’s tuition in advance plus an enrollment fee of $2,900, for a total of $6,150.

“There is no ‘grace period,’” the handbook says. “Late charges for chronically late payments may be assessed.”

Call up Agape’s website or Facebook page, and you’ll see photos of a sprawling 200-acre campus featuring a rec room, swimming pool, football, baseball and soccer fields, an amphitheater, computer lab and 400-seat auditorium. There are pictures of exotic animals like llamas, emus, zebras, alpacas and water buffalo, smiling teens posing in graduation caps and gowns and boys riding horses and playing football.

And praise from parents who have sent their sons there.

“Great to see so much continuing to prosper at Agape ... keep up the good work,” one mother wrote on Agape’s Facebook page in July. “So proud my son is part of this WONDERFUL staff and ministry...Walk with our King, and be a BLESSING. God will continue to return double fold.”

David Smock, the Stockton physician who provides medical care for Agape students, strongly urges parents to consider the school.

Agape’s website features a testimonial from Smock, whose son married James Clemensen’s granddaughter.

“Agape has had a long history of helping boys,” Smock said. “With improved behavior and impulse control, these young fellows learn to succeed and develop a healthy respect for authority figures, parents and loved ones. As a physician, I strongly support the model practiced at this boarding school.”

Other leaders in the community have made their support of the Christian boarding school well known. Even a former Stockton mayor heaped praise on Agape.

“Agape is a great asset to our community,” wrote Patty Thompson, in a letter posted on Agape’s website. “It is the perfect atmosphere for teen boys who are struggling with anything from authority, bad behavior, drugs, bad grades or failing in their faith.

“The way Agape Boarding school helps troubled teen boys learn Christian values and grow in their faith is especially important. … I would say to any parent who is having a hard time entrusting their son to a teen program, far away or close to home, that I have no problem endorsing Agape Christian Boarding School.”

‘THERE WAS NO LOVE THERE’

Agape, its website says, “is the Greek word defined as God’s unconditional love for mankind. That is what Agape Boarding School is all about!”

But former students tell a far different story.

“There was no love there,” said Sean Markley, who attended Agape from July 1999 through the end of October 2002, then briefly worked on staff. “There was no caring.”

He and other former students who spoke to The Star described it as more like a military boot camp run amok. And one that didn’t practice the religion it preached.

“If they knew two students hated each other, they’d make them have boxing matches in certain situations. No mouthpiece, just gloves,” said Aaron Rother, who attended Agape in the three states it has operated in. “Even as a kid, I was like, ‘That doesn’t sound Christian.’”

Schrag completed two stints at Agape for a total of more than five years and said he regularly witnessed staff humiliate and degrade students.

“Everybody there called us names from day one,” he said. “‘You’re going to prison, you’re not gonna make it.’ They’d yell in your face, yell in front of everybody, single you out.”

When they arrived, the boys’ heads were buzzed — the school’s handbook states, “the Bible says ‘it is a shame for a man to have long hair’” — and they were strip-searched. Staff went through their belongings, removing items that weren’t allowed. Then they were issued an orange T-shirt, which represented “new-kid status,” a King James Bible and, to keep anyone from running, a pair of “Agape Airs” — shoes that were several sizes too big with the tongues and laces removed.

Students were issued different shirt colors to distinguish their rank, which was determined based on their behavior and attitude. If staff believed they had misbehaved, students could be demoted to a level several colors lower.

If the boys were on medication for behavioral issues, it was taken away, many former students said.

“I’m ADHD, and they pulled me off the medication,” Markley said. “Their belief was psych medications don’t do anything for you. It’s all in your head, and Jesus Christ will save you. So you had a lot of students who were off meds that they needed.”

The whole introduction to the school is “really traumatic,” Harper said.

“They go through your stuff, saying, ‘You can’t have this, you won’t be seeing this for a long time,” Harper said. “They throw stuff in a bag like they’re going to throw it away.”

When Harper first got there as a 14-year-old boy, he remembers saying something “smart” to James Clemensen.

“I got a backhand” from a staff leader, Harper said. He said he then was told: “‘You don’t talk like that to the owner. We’ll teach you.’”

The boys were assigned a “buddy,” an older student who was put in charge of them through orientation and sometimes beyond. They were ordered to never stray more than three feet from their buddy. If they did, they were considered a flight risk and could be tackled and beaten by other students. The boys said they were at the mercy of their buddies, who often used their authority to make their lives even more miserable.

“You were not allowed to talk,” Frazier said. “If you had anything to say, you had to raise your hand. If your buddy didn’t like what you had to say, he was allowed to discipline you, whether it was push ups, sit ups, leg lifts.”

To get out of “new-kid status,” the former students said they had to memorize the 23rd Psalm and the names of all the books of the Bible. Once that happened, they received a yellow shirt and could start attending school.

The school curriculum is Christian-based and requires students to work at their own pace. Agape is not registered with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and that agency has no authority over the school, according to Mallory McGowin, a DESE spokeswoman.

During their time at the school, some boys were singled out for more harassment and abuse than others, former students told The Star.

Robert Lepido, who was at the Agape Boarding School in Washington from 1992 until it closed in 1995, said the bashing of gay students was commonplace — and extreme.

“That’s why I didn’t make it through high school,” he said. “They taught us to do God’s work, and God hates homosexuals, they’re less than human. And I bought into that crap.”

When Lepido got out of Agape and went to live in New Hampshire, he was in 9th grade.

“And I get thrown out for beating up a gay kid,” he said. “That’s not me. But when you get brainwashed like that, it’s pretty bad.”

Having free will is not a thing at Agape, Markley said.

“Marine Corps, they tear down and build back up,” he said. “But you get into Agape, they don’t do it that way. They tear you down and build you back up in the way that they want you to conform, and anybody else who says they’re true Christians, they aren’t true Christians.”

NOBODY CAME TO HELP

Agape requires students to be enrolled for 30 days before receiving a phone call from their parents. After that, they are limited to one 15-minute call every two weeks.

Former students said calls home were strictly monitored. If they told Mom and Dad something that staffers didn’t like, the call would typically be cut off.

Letters going out were read and staff often used a Sharpie marker to black out words and paragraphs they didn’t want sent home. The former students who spoke to The Star said they couldn’t alert their parents to questionable discipline or emotional abuse.

“They isolate you,” Patterson said. “What is said and the image that is given is a show that Agape puts forth.”

When parents did come for visits, former students said they often had been forewarned by Agape staff that their sons would try to manipulate them.

“They pre-frame it with your family that ‘Jimmy’s gonna lie and say we did these things,’” said Griffey, the 2001 graduate who stayed on a year as staff. “‘He’s just trying to get you to take him home. Tell us, come to us, we’ll talk it out with you.’ Then when the parents are gone, they make that kid’s life a living hell.”

In his four years at Agape, Harper said he was never interviewed by a social worker or talked to a law enforcement officer.

“Nobody came,” Harper said. “Never saw anybody. In my whole time there, I never saw anybody come out.”

Other former students said they saw one or two social workers drop by and talk to teens, but nothing ever came of the visits.

In early 2015, Clidence, the former Agape teacher, went to see an attorney in Bolivar in neighboring Polk County. He had worked in the school at Agape since 2012 and was concerned about discipline at the school and how some students were treated.

“They gave the students a false sense of love,” Clidence told The Star. “They would say, ‘We do this because we love you.’ And that’s just a manipulation tactic. And I would say, ‘This isn’t love.’

“How these staff members treat these kids isn’t love.”

Clidence said his wife had hotlined the school on two occasions but was never contacted by the state. So the couple went to an attorney — while Clidence still worked at Agape — to see if there was anything they could do to end what they say was happening at the school.

“And the attorney said there’s nothing to be done,” Clidence said. He and his wife left the attorney’s office that day with a clear message: “They’re untouchable.”

THE AGAPE ‘PR TEAM’

During his time at Agape, Frazier was a member of what he calls the “PR team.”

School officials took a group of about seven boys into the community, Frazier said, to speak to groups and churches in Stockton and nearby Springfield. A staffer was always with them, he said, watching how they behaved and making sure they portrayed the right image.

They knew if they said or did anything wrong, they’d be punished when they got back to Agape, Frazier said.

“We were only allowed to talk about God,” said Frazier, as he began to give examples. “‘This place shows me the Lord. This place saved my life. I have a relationship with my dad now.’’’

He got good at it, smiling his big smile and willing to say anything to stay out of trouble and be a part of that team. If only so he could communicate with other teens without being punished. Because when they went into the community, the boys were allowed to talk normally. They laughed in the van and could act like typical teens, at least for a little while.

“We all looked happy,” Frazier said. “We were allowed to talk to each other. And that right there, that joy we felt, would give people the impression that we were always happy.”

Before arriving at Agape, Frazier was a high school athlete with a 3.6 GPA. He wasn’t troubled or a delinquent. The thing that landed him there was issues he used to have with his stepmother. The two didn’t get along at that time, and that caused friction in his family.

When he left Agape, he said he struggled for years to overcome what he went through. Today, he readily rattles off a laundry list of experiences that led to “night terrors” as an adult.

“I got elbowed. I got put into a choke hold. I got both of my shoulders dislocated,” Frazier said. “I was watched while I showered. I was watched while I went to the restroom.”

One day he was having what he called a “break.” Everything just felt like too much, being away from home and the isolation and the punishments, so he started to cry.

Boyd Householder, a staff member who was at Agape for several years before he opened Circle of Hope, came up to him.

“He used that Dad line, ‘If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about,’” Frazier said. “I messed up and said, ‘F*** you.’

Frazier said he soon got what the boys knew as the “Householder headlock.”

“He put you in a half nelson and pushed his thumb into the bottom left corner of your right shoulder blade, which is a pivot point, and it would make your body automatically push deeper into the headlock,” Frazier said. “Right before I fainted, him and (another staffer) carried me into the restraint room. That was the first time one of my shoulder blades got dislocated.”

He learned not to show weakness in front of anyone. So, at night, once in bed, the 14-year-old would cry.

Frazier would have to cry silently — it’s what all the boys did so no one could see or hear them. They’d either cry into their pillows or the one stuffed animal the staff allowed them to have.

For Frazier, the tears went into his “super furry” stuffed monkey his little brother gave him when the family visited after the first three months.

“That monkey,” he said, “is what pulled me through.

“This is the first time in 16 years I’m talking about it. The strength of those girls (from Circle of Hope) who spoke out helped give me my voice.”